The nomadic, curling cop

Since the 2009 Canadian Police Curling Championships is underway in St. John's, N.L., I feel it’s important to shine a spotlight on those championships and specifically the one curler who has been the most dominant at those championships over a span of 25 years.
Garth Mitchell has skipped the national polic curling champion on five different occasions. The amazing thing is that Mitchell has done this while curling out of three different provinces.
Mitchell won his first crown in 1984 while representing Nova Scotia at the police championships held in Winnipeg.
There would be a 15-year drought for Mitchell until he won his second crown, this time for P.E.I. at the police championships held in Regina in 1999.
The 2000s would bring Mitchell three more crowns — all of them while curling out of a third province, Ontario.
Starting in 2004, Mitchell skipped a rink of Don Shane, Jeff Corey and Troy Izlakar to three crowns in four years winning in Hamilton in 2004, Calgary in 2006 and Moncton in 2007. In actuality, Mitchell’s fifth crown, in 2007, was actually won while carrying a fourth banner, as his team was Team Canada, as the defending champions, and not Team Ontario.
As Team Canada in 2005, Mitchell’s rink finished second in the round robin, lost the 1-2 page playoff game to Ontario, defeated Alberta in the semifinal before losing the final to Ontario 7-4.
In 2008, as Team Canada, Mitchell repeated the pattern from 2005, except it defeated B.C. in the semifinal and lost to Alberta in the 1-2 playoff and the final. The score in the final was 8-7.
Mitchell and his rink are back this year as Ontario, looking for a fourth crown as a rink and a sixth for Mitchell.
Interesting side note: two members of Mitchell’s championship teams would win another without him before he started the winning streak in Ontario. Paul Saulnier, Mitchell’s third from the P.E.I. championship squad, skipped P.E.I. to national crown in 2002, while Jim Delaney, the lead for Mitchell from the 1984 Nova Scotia rink, was Saulnier’s vice-skip with the P.E.I. rink.
As for Mitchell, no skip has won more police curling championships in the event's 50+ year history.